TequilaFire wrote: »

ZOS is Microsoft.

ZOS is owned by Microsoft.

Facebook is soooo 2015

It is almost like the atmosphere is artificially upbeat and there are far more people upset about this than is being seen here, huh.

[snip]

[Edited for Baiting]

Shantu wrote: »

There will always be those who take advantage of every opportunity to be hostile, but overall, cynicism doesn't occur in a vacuum. The way ZOS has managed their interaction with the ESO community over the years has created a lot of pent up frustration that will surface with slightest of reasons. So in that regard, while ZOS may actually be unable to resolve the current issues due to contractual constraints beyond their control, the hostile reaction of the community is entirely predictable. Due to a long history of lack of candid communication...

Bolded for truth - I've said this so many times to the CMs and I've yet to get a response. This is in no way bashing - it's just an objective observation - people are asking for more candid communication. It's been requested for the entire life of this game.

This search proves it:
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/search?Search=communication

A sampling:
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/7189875#Comment_7189875
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/7234571#Comment_7234571
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/71376/communication-communication-communication
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/6849935#Comment_6849935
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/7062794#Comment_7062794
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/4583051#Comment_4583051
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/5457856#Comment_5457856

Honestly - there's just too many to list.

@ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_JessicaFolsom @ZOS_MattFiror This problem is rather old. Please listen to what your community is saying - we're not trying to bash or hurt you - we're trying make the game better. Whether the community management is sufficient isn't evaluated by you, it's evaluated by us. And we're saying it's not.

Imagine going to work everyday and having people degrade you. Hopefully they don't read the Facebook comments.

FantasticFreddie wrote: »

Same. On PC but I am angry on PS behalf. This is ridiculous.

Don't forget us Xbox folks. All consoles are impacted by this issue. The thread was PS4 because it was discovered there. But Xbox is suffering right along with PS users.

GreenHere wrote: »

Odovacar wrote: »

The funny thing is there's much more anonymity here on the forums than there is on FB. People just don't care. I always try to be a good social media participant with my comments and posts. A healthy debate is good, but bashing and straight disrespect we all see everyday regardless if its game related or irl stuff has gotten so outa hand.

As one of the people who could very reasonably be lumped into the "bashing and straight disrespect" category of forum goers (at least part of the time), I gotta say I feel like ZOS goes out of their way to earn that attitude from their customers, though.

I try not to post negativity for its own sake, or just be a naysaying downer for no reason. I'm not here to troll people or bash ZOS for the heck of it. I don't want to ruin people's day or make folks feel cruddy. I'm not about that, even if sometimes it may seem that way to some.

But as a customer (and just as someone who appreciates the medium) I too-often feel disappointed and/or disrespected by the company's products and actions (or lack thereof) in some areas, and am just the type of person who's inclined to call it like I see it. I don't have a negative take on things because it's fun or because I have unrealistic standards that are impossible to meet -- it's just genuinely how I see things a lot of times with ESO, sadly. It's honestly disappointing and frustrating; which is in no small part where the negative attitudes come from for a lot of us, unsurprisingly.


ZOS gets ire and venom from their player base for a few fairly simple -- and totally avoidable -- reasons:

1. Their communication generally sucks. If they bothered to have a more direct and honest conversational approach to letting us fans know what is up with the game, we'd have a LOT less to complain about. Or if they even bothered to engage with us at all a bit more often, that'd be nice! And the communication we do get is too scattered! Often we only find out about things here on the forums -- the developer's own forums! -- when people come in and report things they've seen on ZOS' twitter, or twitch, or myspace, or fax machine, or whatever. That's dumb.
2. Their monetization practices sometimes feel greedy and unfair. If they priced things closer to what their quality merited, it wouldn't be so bad; many of us are willing to pay a lot to get a lot, or a little to get a little. But we often have to pay a lot to get a little, or gamble to get a thing at all. It doesn't feel good. Actually it often feels like a spit in the face, yet it's presented as if it's blessed rain. Hard not to feel disrespected by some of these practices, honestly. And the inconsistency in pricing things doesn't help either.
3. Their product is unstable in more ways than one. They make substantial changes too often for many of us (and not always for the better), and this creates a sort of "ugh, what now?! already?!" kind of sentiment for pretty understandable reasons that I won't go into here. And that's just when the game is actually working like it should, which... well, let's just say there's room for improvement on that front. For the last 5 years, at least. Every game has its share of issues, sure; but it sure doesn't seem like any meaningful progress is being made when new problems are being introduced faster than the old ones are getting solved. Something is definitely wrong on the technical side of things, and as a user it doesn't seem that unreasonable to expect that a well-funded company like ZOS should be able to "fix their damn game" (it's a well-established phrase, please don't edit it out ZOS) within half a decade. And yet...
4. There are a bunch more, but those are "the big 3" I reckon. BUT -- all the little things really add up too, so they get an honorable mention. One need only look at the endless pages of "negativity & disrespect" that players take the time to spell out to get an idea of what minor issues are persistently bugging the user base. There's a lot of actually valuable feedback in those threads, if you look past the snark and criticism and whatnot. If only someone from ZOS would occasionally participate in such discussion (or even just acknowledge the underlying concerns that the community has), then they wouldn't fester and keep cropping up. But this just brings us back to point number 1, and the vicious cycle is born anew...

So, no, I personally don't feel super inclined to cut ZOS slack very often. They bring these problems -- and the resulting community attitude that goes with them -- entirely upon themselves. They could do better. They should do better.

Many may disagree, and I may have my opinion censored for bashing or whatever, but that's just how I honestly see things.

Wow, this is honestly one of the better comments I've seen here in a while. Your point of them going out of their way to earn ire - spot on.

I've done a lot of thinking on this issue, since this game is like my main passtime in the covid era. Speaking to your 4 points:
1. I want to think the best of people like @ZOS_GinaBruno and @ZOS_JessicaFolsom and their team. They're people, they're doing a job, they're listening to their leadership and probably doing the best they can given their circumstances and company's processes. Can the communication be better? God yes. The sad thing is we don't as a community know what drives the scant communication and I'm sure they're not sitting there twiddling their thumbs. At the end of the day, you're right, this is the developer's own forums and this should be THE place where ZOS interacts the most - or at least with the most technical and candid details. I see that this forum and Reddit, and even my guild chats, are abuzz because Jessica posted something. A lot of it is pretty negative - with valid reason - right now. I can only imagine how discouraging it'd be for her where she finally says something and instead of it being calming, it's caused reddit, here, and every ESO discord to erupt. That fallout isn't on her, it's on her leadership or whoever is driving these decisions. We shouldn't lose sight of what effort went into that and not direct it at her, but at ZOS itself.
2. Their monetization, I don't think I can safely say what I feel about it. There's a lot of research that drives monetization, I just don't like feeling nudged in everyone aspect of my life. Unfortunately gaming is fraught with this now and its the price we pay to play with friends in a fantasy world. I detest the cost of things in this game, but support what I think is reasonable. Lord knows if I go to any wine bar near me, I'm dropping $150 minimum. The game that's helped me escape boredom in quarantine, I'm ok to support it as long as it's not predatory. Sadly, it sometimes feels like it. There's zero justification for $100 houses or $50 motifs.
3. Build quality gets so disheartening. The Elder Scrolls IP is probably my favorite next to LoTR, and the games are among my favorites too. I was happy to play this game in beta and at launch, but even then, there was a sense the devs weren't listening as well as the community wanted them to. We had 2020 and man this game was in a rough spot. Leadership's posts confirm the wrong decisions were made. Unfortunately, their decisions irk us off customers and in turn that puts people like Gina and Jess in a painful position when they have to deal with that anger. It's not fair to them, and it's not fair to the devs who are berated when a patch gets rushed out. ZOS could do better, and sometimes they do. When they don't, it seems like we wait eons for resolutions, if we get it at all.
4. This point really hit home for me. A lot of us just don't play this game. We live it. We take time on our lunch to research what could be better, many of us take a very measured approach on PTS and give them real numbers. For a lot of the major fiascos - perfected weapons, green tree CP - people have given thorough and compromised answers. The lack of response back is insulting. The sense of "it's our game, love it or leave it" is just completely disrespectful to the people who've made this game and this IP what it is. I work in software and I realize not every feature is possible, but I wouldn't have my job long if I didn't listen to my client when they say something could feel better or could make more sense. Here's no different. At the end of the day, there's a product we use and we see ways it could be improved. We see it an non-developers. That's crucial. At the very least, when players go out of their way to provide detailed and professional input on how a feauture could be better thought out and live up to its full potential - ie the new tutorial - ZOS should really weigh in. The PTS forums are there, and the ZOS comments are scant there to. We don't know what feedback is heard because they never tell us.

I just hope ZOS sees this and does some serious reflection.